


Go Lightly

by cielchat



Category: Naruto
Genre: Look I know in canon Tobirama’s eyelashes are black, M/M, Slow Burn, i don’t care, they’re white in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2020-12-17 10:54:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21053210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cielchat/pseuds/cielchat
Summary: "The only emotions Uchiha know are love and loss."It's not a good thing to tell Tobirama, just shy of twenty-four, three brothers dead, and a village held together with strings. Then again, Madara never really gave a damn if his words upset Tobirama.





	1. Feel Nobly

It sounded like bullshit when Madara told him that, but something on Tobirama’s face must have shown his disbelief, because Madara defended his statement.

“Everything I feel, everything I do stems from those two emotions. It’s love for my clan that drives me, that shapes my entire character. And it’s the loss that I’ve felt over my fallen family that pits me against the world.”

“Loss turns to anger. Anger turns to hate, and rage, and cruelty. You can’t possibly try to tell me that the Uchiha can only feel nobly.”

“I don’t hate you, Senju. You are remarkably like Izuna; he was always careful, wary. Never believed the Senju and Uchiha could co-exist. But when I look at you I see him. I feel all the loss that I’ve felt since you killed him.”

Tobirama hated him. He hadn’t any illusions about Senju and emotions, he hated the way Madara wouldn’t look at him. Hated his aloofness as if the village was a dream doomed to fail. Hated his dismissiveness.

Hated this man that convinced his anija to kill himself.

“I promise you, the Uchiha that killed my six year old brother seven times over after he was already dead didn’t feel love or loss in those actions._  
_Perhaps you don’t hate me, _Uchiha_. But never try to tell me that you love me.”

Tobirama rose and left, left Madara sitting at the village overlook, tea still steaming.

Hashirama, for all his sentimentality, hadn’t had many personal belongings. Once, he’d made a little wooden statue of himself hugging a wooden Tobirama. In the early stages of him learning Mokuton, twigs and leaves sprouted here and there across their bodies. The two had laughed at its crude, rough artistry, and Hashirama had been about to unmake it when Tobirama snatched it away from him.

_I like it. I’m keeping it._

Tobirama had only been fourteen.

He had only been twenty three when he’d buried Hashirama, half his body charred by some furious spirit or god. A trail of tar near him, as if something had crawled away. The village, Hashirama’s child, had been only in its barest stages of its infancy. He’d almost decked Madara out of rage and grief when he’d seen him after the funeral.

_You could have gone with him. You could have helped him!_

Hashirama had asked his brother to stay behind with the village. Madara was sequestered with his clan that week, not to be found by either of them.

_You got what you wanted. He’s dead._

That had been the first time since war that Tobirama had seen Madara’s dead black gaze alight with something. He’d turned away before Madara could see the tears in his own eyes. It was a month before Tobirama saw him again, strangely aloof and secluded even from his own clanmates. It worried him, especially as Madara left the meeting without speaking to a single soul or picking fights with anyone either. He tracked Madara after that, and hours later in the evening, realized with a stab of panic that Madara was making for the road that led out of the village rather than the Uchiha compound.

“You think you can leave?”

Madara stilled at the gates. Black cloaks rippled on the wind; Tobirama was still in mourning. Madara always wore black.

“I didn’t expect you to stop me.”

“You made a pact. You asked my brother to kill me or himself to prove he was committed to peace. He did what you asked; he committed his _life_ to peace. You think you can just walk out of here? This place is your fucking legacy.”

Madara scoffed at that. “This place doesn’t want me and I don’t want it. If Hashirama’s ghost is the only thing keeping me here then tell him it’s time to truly pass on.”

“The only thing? Your family is here. Your clan. What happened to ‘It’s my love for my clan that drives me?’”

How Tobirama dared to doubt Madara’s love for his own clan, Madara didn’t know. “I love my clan as much as I ever will, but I can no longer help them.”

“You have to! God knows what I’ll do with you gone and Hashirama dead and the village in factions. You _are_ the Uchiha. With you gone they’ll split and I can barely handle one clan, let alone an incivil one.”

Finally, _finally, _Madara turned his back on the gate. He hadn’t taken a step away yet, but he finally looked at Tobirama, and there was something of a twitch in his lips. Perhaps it was just that he wasn’t frowning, but Tobirama felt something akin of hope, the barest lightening of the pressure on his chest.

“You’re begging me to stay, Senju.”

“You’ve got it all wrong. I’m ordering you to stay.”

“Are you telling yourself that this is to keep an eye on me?”

Tobirama frowned; this man was asking to be stabbed. “It is to keep an eye on you. And to hold you to your responsibilities.”

Madara retreated from the gate. He threw his pack into Tobirama’s chest as he walked past, and said “Come with me. If you want me to stay, we’ve got work to do.”

It was past midnight, and Madara kept the two of them up till dawn broke, but with the new day came a new kind of peace, agreements between the two of them. The drafts and proposals written about their newborn village lay scattered across the floor; neither Senju nor Uchiha clan given power over the other. Communal school for children of all clans. Laws taken from the traditions of each clan were compared.

“This may be the longest I’ve gone without wanting to break your neck.”

“I don’t believe that falls under love or loss, Uchiha.”

Something that was halfway between a laugh and a huff left Madara. “It falls under love of peace and quiet.”

Tobirama sighed and rolled over on the floor to his final paper. “Well, you may need to say goodbye to that feeling. We still need to elect a leader somehow.”

“The Hokage.”

“What?”

“Hashirama called it the Hokage. He asked me to take it on.”

“Well. Hokage it is then. But I think it should be an elected position. I’ve had about goddamn enough of leaders who simply come into power without the wills of the people being taken into consideration.”

“You’re a fool, Senju. People will choose with greed and ambition in their minds. They’ll follow their pride instead of choosing a better future. You’ll having nothing more than the loudest clan head as your new Hokage.”

“So you want it, then? The title?”

He had been right; the urge to punch the white-haired man was back.

“No. The next time I decide to walk out of this village, I don’t want you to have another reason to make me come back.”

“I really, really don’t like you.”

“And you?”

“Absolutely not. Whoever takes that position will likely be… encouraged to marry the Uzumaki heir, and I… won’t.” It was surprisingly reticent for Tobirama. Madara had grown used to knowing the other would say whatever was on his mind in whatever tone he wanted.

“Doesn’t meet your standards, does she?”

“Actually, she’s quite gorgeous, and extremely skilled to boot. Shall I find her picture? Would that make you interested in being Hokage?”

Madara made a sound of disgust. “For an arranged marriage? Don’t make me push you through the window, Senju. Uchiha marry for love.”

Tobirama paused in his sorting of papers, and Madara could feel the disbelief rolling off him in waves. “Really.”

“Unlike the rest of you bloodless corpses, it seems.”

“I’ll show you blood,” Tobirama muttered darkly, but didn’t push the issue.

The nine AM light broke on them leaving the building together; standing safely apart but still far more in sync than any would expect of the two. Tobirama glanced at the Uchiha, started at the fierce glare on the other’s aristocratic face, and then relaxed when he realized it was just due to the bright rays of the sun.

“You can leave me alone now,” Madara grumbled.

“What?”

“I’m far too fucking tired right now to go on a trip out the village. I’m going back to sleep. You don’t have to follow me around or track my every move.”

Tobirama paused. Had Madara known he’d been tracking him earlier? He must, since how else would he have known to stop him at the gate?

“I won’t,” he told Madara guardedly.

“You’re lying,” he replied. “No matter. Waste your chakra as you like.”

An entire night of this. Why had Tobirama stopped him again? “Good day to you, then.”

Tobirama turned on his heel and strode away, ignoring the feeling of leaving a party before it’s ended.

Tobirama paused in his writing, feeling a prickle on the back of his neck. His chakra sprung up automatically, and he began twisting it to sense his surroundings. The prickle grew even worse as he realized there was no one nearby, and everyone in the building was someone meant to be there. In spite of himself, he stood and strode to the window to look out across the sprawling construction sites across the village.

“Odd,” he whispered. There was definitely something wrong, that wasn’t meant to be around, and yet he couldn’t pinpoint a single thing. The uncertainty definitely made it worse. He reached out to the remnants of Hashirama’s trees, Mokuton creations that he had place sensory seals on- he had plans for a full village barrier, but between organizing personnel and sending missives to independent clans, he had let it fall by the wayside- and found two things. The trees, while no longer extensions of Hashirama’s will, were immense and vivid with leftover chakra, and should live for centuries or more. One of them, however, seemed wilted and dying. The second thing that tipped off Tobirama was the startling lack of energy around the tree. His sensory seal was still working- a trick to finesse his range, give him the same clarity he would have if he were standing right there, despite the distance- and yet he couldn’t sense the usual flora and fauna life around the area because there truly _wasn’t _any. He turned back to his desk.

It was all work he didn’t need to finish till the end of the week, he reasoned, hardly emergencies. He grabbed a blank piece of paper and wrote a note, sealed it, and left it in the first drawer. Years ago, a disturbance outside the Senju compound would have seen him rushing to deal with it immediately, confident that he was more than capable of handling anything that came into his home territory. There was never doubt in his mind that he was the equal or better of anyone else, but now-

Hashirama dead. He had to be careful. For the village.

_Dead trees, _read the note. _Barrier, watch for the void. _

And he climbed out of the window and swiftly made his way to the tree.

It wasn’t dead yet, he noted, just yellowed and leafbare, as if poisoned. The grass in a circle of a hundred meters was the same, patching the ground. Tobirama wasn’t a florist of any sort, but he could tell that the soil wasn’t parched and the area hadn’t been burnt or shaded over, it was just…dead. In nearby trees, birds warbled cheerfully as they chased each other. They simply couldn’t find food or coverage on this dead tree; and he ruled out some sort of killing curse. Poison, then?

His sensory seal on the trunk of the tree was untampered with, its white paper stark now against the sepia of dead foliage. He moved it to the very base of the tree, on one of the largest roots, and tried to extend his senses downwards, as if looking for a blockage or contamination. There was nothing.

It took him a moment to realize it, but as a violent chill crept through him, he realized the nothingness wasn’t passive. His own chakra levels began declining steadily, and dangerously rapidly. There was a well of hunger below the tree that had been slowly eating away at the nature energy, and now it had found him, with his pure, dense chakra force. And it _wanted. _

For the first time in his life, Tobirama used Hiraishin to escape.

He had noticed, of course, that this tree was barely more than fifty meters away from where he had found Hashirama’s body.

He landed back in his office, panting from the tax on his already depleted chakra, and somehow was almost relieved to see Madara, petulant and all too arrogant, sitting in his chair.

“What the hell is wrong with you,” Madara snapped, probably to cover up the fact that he had jumped about a foot at Tobirama’s arrival.

“I’m allergic,” Tobirama regained control of his breathing, “to your attitude. And presence.”

“Suck it up, buttercup,” the Uchiha said, unimpressed. “The Yamanaka and Inuzuka accepted our offer, which means the Nara and Akamichi are sure to follow. They’re going to want to know about our governing administration.”

“Everything’s in order,” Tobirama told him, rounding his desk and none too gently ushering Madara out of his seat. “We have a council, chiefs for each department, and a system for the military. I’m waiting until more clans join before we start putting people in the commander, lieutenant, and captain positions so that it isn’t just Senju and Uchiha in positions of militia power. And we still need to find a Hokage.”

“I thought you wanted to vote for Hokage.”

“Yes, but first I want to find people that are worthy of voting for instead of power hungry warmongers stuck in the past.”

Madara frowned, not sure if it was a jab at him. “Any Senju?”

“Those idiots? I wouldn’t trust the eager ones to shine my armor, and the competent ones don’t want to step into politics. The only one I would have wanted as Hokage was Hashirama.” Tobirama handed him a copy of the ranking system and descriptions of members of the Council. “I think I left the Academy and Treasury files in the library.”

“Your love for your clan astounds me.”

“And your love for your clan drives you. And me. Up a wall. Any Uchiha who aren’t too crazy to run a village?”

“Several. Kiyoko. Sari. Hana. Yuuko. Rei. Definitely Hanabi, but she’s got three children now.”

Tobirama paused, and finally looked at him, eyes feeling tired. He was relieved to see Madara’s own gaze a calm charcoal black. “Only women?”

“Do you have an issue with women?” Madara’s eyebrows rose.

“I’m just surprised that you don’t. It’s not common for male clan heads to be so egalitarian.”

“The men in my clan have an unfortunate habit of worshipping Tajima’s memory.” Madara frowned, and Tobirama held a flickering memory of Uchiha Tajima hurling a sword at him as his own father threw a kunai at Izuna. “The women know better.”

Tobirama returned to finding files for Madara. “Are these kunoichi?”

“Half of them are.”

“Of any caliber?”

“Of course. All Uchiha are superior to most other ninja.” He didn’t have to look up to know Madara was pulling a smug look. He sighed.

“I’ll rephrase that. Can any of them pull off a show of force that would successfully intimidate the regimes in the lands of wind and lightning, and impress the clan heads in whirlpool?”

“They’re Uchiha. Kunoichi or not, no one dares to meet our eyes.”

Tobirama refused to answer that, letting his silence dictate exactly how unimpressed he was.

“I can ask them to grow their hair out a little longer,” Madara relented. “Yuuko’s even taller than I am, Sari has a cross-continent reputation, and Rei knows how to act like a complete psycho to get what she wants.”

“If they’re unmarried, powerful, confident, and willing to work for peace, then I’m all for it. Talk to them,” Tobirama ordered.

“Don’t tell me what to do. I’ll kill you.”

Tobirama glared at him. “I’ll kill myself first, just to deprive you of the honor.”

“Wish you would!” Madara called, walking out of the room.

He wouldn’t admit it, but Madara felt more than a little lonely. Izuna had been the bridge between him and his cousins, and with Izuna lost he’d drawn further and further from normal human contact. It was odd to think that his daily arguments with Tobirama, stressing over policies and enemies, were the majority of his social interactions. At this point, he delayed going home longer and longer, knowing that shadows were waiting to creep into his room and that he’d see Izuna with yellow eyes every time he tried to go to sleep.

His clan had pulled away from him, as a tree shakes off cumbersome fruit in a heavy storm. They had been more than prepared for his death during that final battle between him and the Senju brothers, knowing that with Izuna gone, Tobirama would finally set his sights on their clan head. They had been ready for surrender far longer than he had, and it was only the letter of the law that kept them under his control- knowing that trust gone, knowing his brother gone, and finally Hashirama gone as the last person he trusted to want him around, he couldn’t find it in himself to impose upon the company of others. And so, he woke up in the morning, drank his tea and ate his rice in silence, and then drifted into the village to let Tobirama hound him for the day before returning to his clan compound and allowing the elders and older clansmen to talk around him and occasionally answer questions and invitations to conversation in short and unfollowable answers.

He hadn’t expected Tobirama to be so invested. He’d always seen the other on the other end of a sharp sword or a sharp tongue, known the helpless battle-rage of looking into cold red eyes and felt the sting of annoyance whenever Tobirama had interrupted him and Hashirama angrily. In spite of that he realized that he felt no dread whenever he realized Tobirama would be hunting him down that day to stamp out a protocol for training ambassadors or raising children. He didn’t like the thought much, Izuna still whispering in his ear and the memory of Tobirama’s rage at Hashirama’s funeral fresh and bright. And yet he let himself be found each time, refused to hide away, refused to curb his answers and words. And Tobirama just kept coming back. Occasionally he threw out the occasional jab and insult, and to his surprise, Tobirama always returned in kind before shoving some plan into his face. He found he couldn’t shout him down either, as he used to do with his more arrogant clansmen; Tobirama’s voice was unusually deep and its rumble carried easily. All in all, Madara realized that he could almost say he liked this man that refused to be driven off, who wasn’t deceiving or dishonest, and yet-

That sword in Izuna’s side. That sword poised over his head. Those furious, fearful words to a brother. Madara was ready to leave his blood to this village, but he didn’t trust that his own wouldn’t be spilled by the man’s hand.

Then Madara caught sight of a terribly familiar face arguing viciously with a well respected Uchiha man.

“What’s wrong with Senju Touka?”

“What?” Tobirama was for too engrossed in his reading about the entire sum of knowledge about summon beings to be bothered with paying attention to Madara at the moment.

“Why not ask her to be Hokage? She’s very powerful, intelligent, clearly loves the village, and would most likely have the backing of both Senju and Uchiha.”

Tobirama raised his eyes from the reading and narrowed them at Madara. “Why do you know so much about my cousin?”

“Well,” Madara said, and Tobirama noticed his hair was slightly more messy than usual, “I may have just gotten in an argument with her about genjutsu.”

“And why,” Tobirama followed up, “did that lead to you singing her praises?”

“She’s _very _good at genjutsu.”

“Ah. And that’s why you think the Uchiha would like her.”

“They would,” Madara assured him. “Especially since she hasn’t killed many Uchiha, just left them with night terrors for years. We respect that.”

“You are so very strange.” Tobirama wondered if he could get Madara to start monologuing in order to tune him out and keep reading. “What on earth were you doing talking to Touka anyways?”

“It was about you,” he said. “She seemed to think you were working yourself too hard.”

Tobirama made a noise of dissent.

“That’s what I said,” Madara continued. “You’re clearly not working hard enough if you have time to go training in the middle of work days. But then she said something about how you’d been developing ideas for peace treaties since you were six. She said you and Hashirama would talk about it all the time, and then you would sit down and write theses on the benefits of peace, and then burn them afterwards.”

“So my father wouldn’t find them,” Tobirama said, still focusing on the shark summons which were said to eat another’s chakra. “Writing helped me memorize the points I made.”

“Hashirama never told me about that,” Madara pointed out.

“He probably didn’t want you to know about me. Even if you were friends, he couldn’t let an outsider have too much information about his family.”

“You never told me about it.” And that was Madara’s main complaint, it seemed.

“Why should I?” Tobirama asked him. “Doesn’t that seem_ so_ sincere? You know how I killed your brother and was about to execute you? Don’t worry about that now, you should know I’ve been desperate for peace since the first time I saw a cousin die before my eyes.”

“I wondered how you were so vehement about this village when you were all too ready to put a blade between my eyes,” mused Madara. “I was rather hopeful Hashirama would have killed you instead of going for himself.”

“Would you have stopped him if he did?” Tobirama wondered aloud. “I wanted peace. You were a barrier to that; you kept refusing Hashirama’s treaties. You were keeping the rest of the Uchiha from laying down their arms. I would rather have you dead than alive and prolonging the fighting.”

“That wasn’t your ultimate goal,” Madara stated. “It’s not universal peace for you, it’s keeping your family safe.”

“You’re right,” Tobirama agreed casually. “That’s why Hashirama was the better man. He would have sacrificed me, or you, for complete peace if that’s what was demanded, but I would have protected my family first. And above all, Hashirama. Even from you.”

“You didn’t stop him in time, when I asked him to kill himself.”

“I’m grateful that you did. I was in shock.”

“I think you couldn’t disobey him.”

Tobirama finally gave up on the reading. None of the summons seemed applicable anyways; each described as having a unique and vivid chakra. “What are you getting at? I thought you were trying to convince me to make Touka Hokage?”

“I wonder,” Madara said, “If I could ever accept you as Hokage. On one hand, I don’t know if you wouldn’t burn to the ground anything that threatened what you consider to be the village, even if it’s the Uchiha. On the other, perhaps you are so desparately faithful to Hashirama that your devotion to the village would know no bounds.”

“I told you that I don’t intend to be Hokage. I find being Senju clan head to be enough work by itself, and god help me if I have to marry Uzumaki-sama.”

“That’s another thing,” Madara said, his demeanor returning from choking fire to a simple handheld sparkler. “Touka seems quite taken with redheads.”

“Touka’s stressed, depressed, and terrible at being diplomatic,” Tobirama informed him viciously. “She doesn’t want to be Hokage and we wouldn’t want it either, as much as I love her. Also, stay away from my cousin.”

“You’re in a bad mood, aren’t you?”

“You walked in here, wasted my time, implied you got in a fight with my cousin, proposed to marry my cousin off, insulted me, and questioned my loyalty to the village. Of course I’m in a bad mood, you absolute fuck.”

“Language, Senju,” Madara chided, but his face seemed cruelly pleased. Tobirama recognized elements he hadn’t seen since the warring days, when Madara was pacing in anticipation for Hashirama, who had never quite enjoyed fighting himself, always and only eager to tend to his plants and cultivate little gardens. Luckily for Madara, Tobirama thought angrily, he himself loved the thrill and the art of countering and destroying opponents at every turn that Hashirama never did.

“I’m sorry, did I use words too big for you to understand? Can I get you a dictionary?” On god he wished he could just hit Madara once. Just once.

“How you and Hashirama are related is beyond me. He’d never be petty like this.”

“Don’t you speak about Hashirama.” Tobirama ground out, and he swore he felt his chair crack. “Not to me.”

“Is that fair? You killed my brother. Your brother died, and you’re still holding it against me? What _don’t _you hate me for?”

Tobirama wasn’t sure if the sound he made could have been classified as a laugh, he damn sure wasn’t amused. “Izuna and I were fighting. He would have killed me too if he could- almost did. Five times. You _asked _my brother to kill himself and he complied. I only need one thing to hate you for.”

“So you do.”

Tobirama stood, because he didn’t think he could stay still any longer without the chair and desk shattering from his chakra. “So I do.”

“I know that look on your face, Senju,” Madara spread his arms. “Go on, take a shot. Best chance you’ll get.”

“You think I would?”

“I think you want to. If you didn’t need me. If you didn’t need to be so proper and calculated.”

He eyed the deliberate poor stance Madara had put on. “Of course I want to. Come with me.”

“Why?”

“Come with me,” Tobirama growled, and strode out the door. He took the two of them not far to a clearing just outside the tower; it was decorated in foliage with a delicate garden path and landscaping forming a stream waterfalling along the side of the path.

“What is this?” asked Madara.

“My brother’s pet project. Whenever he was skipping out on paperwork, I’d find him here. One time he wouldn’t leave to go to a meeting until I helped him with the waterfall. Do you recognize it?”

Madara was silent, so Tobirama continued. “The Nakano. The place where you two came up with the plan. You were crucial to it and he wouldn’t leave you behind.”

“So this is why you hate me? Because Hashirama wouldn’t do this village without me?”

Tobirama gently moved a few rocks that had fallen out of place, but still wouldn’t look at him. “I’ve already told you why I hate you. This here is why I trust you. Why I don’t take that shot and try to kill you now. Why I stopped you at the gates. My brother trusted you and needed you here for some damn reason, and if I trust anyone I trust my brother.”

“What a terrible reason to trust someone, Senju. Hashirama and I barely knew each other after all those years apart.”

Tobirama gave a wry smile at something in the distance. “But I thought Uchiha only feel nobly. Isn’t love and loss enough reason to trust someone with the lives of thousands?”

Madara shook his head, but the tense, prickling need under his skin to pick a fight had ebbed.

“You will _not_ make the Uchiha into fodder for a police force!” Madara slammed the door to his study open, chucking the scroll Tobirama had given him earlier directly at his head.

Tobirama ducked easily. “You _told _me I wasn’t giving the Uchiha enough power and sway in the village! Now what’s your problem?”

“Influence isn’t the same thing as enforcement, you stuck up Suiton user!”

“What the hell _do _you want- is that actually what passes for an insult among the Uchiha?”

“How the _fuck _is the Sharingan making Uchiha better suited to police work? All you’ve done is box us into one job, one label. This isn’t equality, Senju!”

“Then you come up with something that makes you happy, since you’re so goddamn eloquent! And no, the council will _not _always have an Uchiha on it. I haven’t even given such a thing to the Senju! In fact, you sour excuse for daikon, in case you haven’t noticed, the Senju aren’t granted any sort of presumed positions!”

“That’s because everyone likes the Senju since they _technically _won the war! If you don’t give my clan their pride back, shit _will happen._”

“Pride?” Tobirama nearly tore his desk in half, his snarl echoing uglier and deeper than ever before. “Our children aren’t fucking dying, how’s that for pride.”

“Pride in this village is what’ll keep this village together.” Madara, startled by the raw anger he hadn’t seen since Hashirama’s death, made an effort to reign his composure back together. “_If _my clan feels alienated by this village, then they will hate it. Then they will rebel. Then they will leave. And then? Children will die.”

Tobirama buried face in hands; after a tense moment without breathing, he sighed deeply. “I’m sorry. Will you sit? Is there something that would work?”

Madara did sit, though the lines of tension didn’t leave his body. “I don’t know. They want to feel that this was an option for them, not the only alternative to annihilation. They want to feel like they have power. I know the Senju aren’t being given anything, but there’s still an imbalance.”

“I know, I know. But those are feelings, and I _can’t-_“ Tobirama broke off. He’d been about to say he couldn’t deal with feelings. He didn’t know how to placate, he could only act. Plan. Make things happen, move along. “What if you take Hokage?”

“I thought you didn’t want it to be a granted position?”

“I don’t. But I’m not saying I would stop you from being elected.”

“Against who? The village hardly loves me. Not even all the Uchiha love me, after I- after they defected.”

“It still wouldn’t be versus me, to be sure.” Tobirama sighed again, dragged a hand down his face. The skin reddened slightly in response, faint enough that Madara’s black eyes barely caught it. “Can we table this for now? I’m done for the day.”

“You? Done before seven?” A derisive grin pulled at the corner of Madara’s mouth.

“Bite me,” Tobirama said, and then, unhurriedly, “Obon dance tonight.” He shuffled his papers into neater stacks. “Would you like to come?”

It was a perfunctory invitation, likely given more out of habit and politeness than anything else, but Madara rolled it around in his mind.

“A Senju one?”

“Yes,” Tobirama said. His eyes narrowed. “In fact, do come. It would be better for you to be seen in social settings more.”

“This is coming from you.”

“It is a great irony that anija has left the two of us to act as icons to this village,” agreed Tobirama. “However cross or crazy we might be, it wouldn’t be wise to let it be our only faces.”

“Faces indeed.” He frowned, noticing Tobirama was already wearing a yukata, while he himself was still in shinobi-black shirt and pants. “I’m not dressed well for it.”

“It’s fine. If you’d like, I think I have a happi somewhere around here.” Tobirama pulled open a drawer, then two. “Here. It’s got a prototype of the leaf design on the back.”

“Fitting,” Madara said, taking it and slipping it on. “Thank you.”

Tobirama paused, watching him unreadably. “You look good.”

“Thank you,” Madara repeated, for lack of a better response and still unsure and a little wary.

They made it to the obon dance with time to spare before the service. Not knowing enough faces there, Madara followed Tobirama into the temple, discomfort assuaged by the fact that he didn’t question it nor throw Madara any confused looks. They stopped at the shrine, where Tobirama dusted off a photo of Hashirama. Madara hesitated before picking up a small statuette. Tobirama was still, but his chakra was unshaken as Madara took a closer look at the little wooden figurine of four brothers. Hashirama and Tobirama were clearly recognizable, but the younger two, Madara had never seen before. He knew, though, had known since days at a river, who they were. He replaced the statuette, and leaned back to watch Tobirama resettle the various object and clean them off. The yukata Tobirama was wearing was blue, he realized, though he hadn’t seen Tobirama outside of black clothing for a while now. A glint of silver looped around the back of his neck, a slender but strong-looking chain. Neither said a word, but instead lit incense before leaving again.

The drummers struck up a familiar rhythm, and as children rushed past him and adults strode, more calmly than their kids but still excited, Madara found himself pulled into the circles. At first he was right behind Tobirama, free from his scrutiny, but as the dances changed so did their positions. Sometimes they were in separate rings; he lost sight of him as they circled the yagura. Once he noticed Tobirama in the very center, obviously dancing quickly and perfectly, but looking as unhurried and at ease as ever. Once Tobirama was behind him for a dance and he spent the entire time with skin prickling.

There had been a few songs that Madara hadn’t known, highlighting the difference in tradition between Senju and Uchiha, but Madara refused to back down from a challenge, and even deeper down, he liked dancing and didn’t want to stop. Most of them had been easy, even without activating sharingan- he didn’t want to give anyone reason to startle- he’d been able to anticipate the movements without making himself look a fool, until a good two hours into the festival when he’d grown complacent. Madara found himself staring into Tobirama’s smirking face as the dancers around him went into a half turn as he stayed facing forwards. Heat crawled under his neck and he knew he was flushing visibly, a semi-furious look on his face for the rest of the dance.

“I’m never doing this again,” he hissed when Tobirama caught up with him after he left the circles.

“You’re fine,” the other dismissed. “Think of it as letting your barriers down.”

“They’re up more than ever,” he assured Tobirama. “Why the hell would Senju do something as stupid as _turn _during dances? The Uchiha would never be so silly. All of our dances make sense. Go forward.”

“It’s really not that deep,” Tobirama protested. Madara scoffed in return, but noticed that neither of them were making moves to head back to the courtyard. In fact, Tobirama seemed to be walking them both further away.

“Where are we going?”

“You don’t need to sound so suspicious,” he said, sounding slightly annoyed. A pause, and then “It’s too hot there. I’ve shown my face, stuck around, and now I’m out of there. I’m going to the river.”

“What, to swim?”

“Obviously.”

Madara really didn’t want to be alone, after looking at Hashirama’s photograph. Deeper in his conscious, he didn’t want Tobirama to be alone at the edges of the village in the dark. But knowing he had neither invitation nor dismissal, he slowed his steps somewhat. Noticing it, Tobirama turned around.

“You can come with me, if you wish.”

“I think…I would rather not. But if you’d like to settle for the pond at my house, I would be amenable to you coming.” Oof, he hadn’t quite meant to say the words quite like that, but Tobirama hadn’t seemed to catch on.

“Scared of the night?” That teasing smile appeared on Tobirama’s face again. He wondered when exactly they had become so familiar.

“Superstition keeps the Uchiha alive,” he responded, but didn’t take another step forward. Tobirama looked at him, the smile fading to contemplativeness.

“Your house it is,” he agreed, and then walked back towards Madara.

The entire walk across the village from the Senju area to the Uchiha compound, Madara felt uncomfortably aware of his own movements and that of his companion’s. He almost wished he were back with the dancers; precise instructions for the movement of his arms and how fast he should make his steps. Now he wasn’t sure if he should let his hands fall by his sides or hook his thumbs into the waistband of his pants where pockets ought to have been but weren’t. He felt like he was walking too slowly, his usual ambivalent pace somehow insufficient. And should he say something? He had nothing to say, to be honest, and though he often felt at home in comfortable silences, his relationship with the man next to him was far too tumultuous to allow him to assume anything about them could be called comfortable. He almost longed for Hashirama, with his easy babbling and chatter that would wash over Madara even when he didn’t want to respond, and didn’t have to.

Tobirama seemed completely unfazed, though Madara wondered if he was imagining or not the occasional glances he gave Madara out of the corner of his eye. He was a good sensor, but Tobirama was undoubtedly better and he knew it would be impossible to read any mood that Tobirama didn’t want portrayed from the other man’s chakra. Perhaps he too was glad for the silence; whenever this shaky truce of theirs broke it could easily revert back to arguments and fighting, and possibly even worse than it had been before. It surprised Madara to realize he wasn’t looking forward to that; while he loved to fight on the battlefield, feel his body move and push and struggle, fighting with words was always much less attractive to him and left him with a sick, heavy feeling in his chest.

“This way.” He directed the two of them through the gates of the compound, giving a nod to the Uchiha woman sitting and caring for her toolkit at the sentry porch; he was surprised when she and Tobirama nodded at each other too. Perhaps times _were_ changing. Madara’s own house was closest to the village side of the compound. Despite the trust he had promised, he wanted to be the first in line if conflict came to the Uchiha from the Leaf. He led Tobirama to the gate on the side of his yard and opened it to reveal the modest garden, trees, and pond he kept neat. With uncharacteristic informality, Tobirama made a beeline for the water.

He hadn’t quite been prepared for the Senju to just let his yukata fall to the grass, and was even less prepared for what was underneath. Tobirama had always been reserved, if not proper, and he’d never seen him uncovered below the neck. Even his face tattoos, if striking, were small and precise, giving little hint to any sort of passion or freedom. But now he gazed on the round muscles of shoulders and couldn’t draw his own red eyes from the careful curves of lines and lines of red tattoos spreading across Tobirama, delineating shoulder blades and hips and spine and curving around, undoubtedly, to his chest and abdomen. With a heavy tug in his stomach, he noticed they ran down and around his thighs as well.

“It’s warm,” Tobirama murmured to him, frustration roughing his whisper. “I quite literally told you I wanted to go swimming because I felt too hot.”

He was ankle deep in the pond at this point, back still to Madara, and glaring down at the ripples and reflections in the water.

“We’re Uchiha, everything is hot,” Madara growled back. He didn’t trust himself to say much else, but Tobirama huffed and padded further in anyways.

“And don’t you think of cooling it down,” Madara called. “It feeds into my koi pond and if you _kill _any of them, I _will _kill you in return.”

“Oh, haven’t you heard?” Tobirama, waist deep, turned around. “I developed a jutsu that raises the dead.”

Madara’s response to his ridiculous claim never formed, distracted as he was. The effect of the tattoos was doubled by the look of Tobirama’s face, lines and eyes glowing together like a blood painted sacrifice.

“Aren’t you getting in,” he called. “Or do you like to watch?”

“I like to watch,” rumbled Madara, for it was the truth and he couldn’t in all honesty think of another thing to say. It seemed to mollify Tobirama, who, unlike usual, didn’t have a sharp retort and instead lowered his gaze to the water again. His hands started moving to the familiar motions of the earlier bon dance, and Madara saw with small amusement that the water would rise and follow his hands without even a single seal to command it.

After a while, Madara raised his eyes to the stars and watched them until the night grew cold enough to drive them both home.

“There’s something old coming,” Tobirama said casually. He was tossing a brush from one hand to the other as he stared at the seal laid out on his desk.

“Oh?”

“It’s been circling us for a while. Taking its time.”

Madara knew what he was talking about; hadn’t known that Tobirama knew. He’d heard the whispers at night, though. Seen a glimpse of it in his dreams the night before he meant to leave the village.

“How do you know about it?”

“How do you?” Tobirama countered.

Madara didn’t hesitate, he told himself, that wasn’t what he was doing. But he held Tobirama’s gaze for a few long seconds, making sure not to spark his Sharingan. Didn’t want to spook the Senju. “I thought it was a genjutsu at first. I tried to break it, or get a closer look, but it was…real. And then I figured it was a manifestation of the Mangekyo.”

Tobirama squinted at him. “How did you know it wasn’t?”

“I wasn’t sure. There aren’t great records of what the Mangekyo can and cannot do, since users are in a prime position to get in fights and die; or barring that, go blind. But this thing, it made mistakes. It knew things I didn’t and didn’t know things I did. And it could be threatened.”

“Of course it could,” Tobirama said tiredly. He rubbed his face, a tic Madara felt he shouldn’t recognize so familiarly. “If we’re thinking of the same thing, it’s what killed Hashirama.”

There’s a jolt in Madara’s chest, an ugly painful thing that makes him feel like he’s about to throw up. “How?”

“Threatened,” Tobirama parroted. “Hashirama was talking about it the week beforehand. Asked me to try to find it. He said he felt something passing through his forest-“

“-his forest?” Madara interrupted.

“He grew a ring of trees around the village for an extra layer of protection. That thing about the village hidden in the leaves? He took the metaphor to another level. Anyways, he told me he felt something evil moving through and asked me to help him find it.”

“Because you’re a sensor,” Madara inferred. “Did you?”

“No,” and he sounded stressed here, on edge. “I was looking for _something. _A stranger. A person. Something with chakra. I didn’t realize-“

Madara remembered the description of Hashirama’s corpse, a perfect half corroded but no wounds otherwise. He remembered the feeling of the old thing, something that whispered right along with his own thoughts, indistinguishable. A partner. Part of himself. His other half.

“I felt him, when he went out,” Tobirama said. “His chakra was _burning_. It only did that when he was fighting you, back then. I couldn’t feel anyone else around him, but I knew he must have found it, and when I focused on him-“

“-emptiness,” Madara said.

“Yes. It was the same when I went out to find Hashirama. No traces of another chakra. No traces of nature energy. No summons energy. Just emptiness.”

“He tried to kill it,” Madara realized. “He could feel it because he was- with his Mokuton and his Sage chakra- the embodiment of life.”

And what did that make Madara himself, he wondered, he who was diametrically opposed to Hashirama for all his life and nearly seduced by this _thing._

“It didn’t work. Whatever he did, this thing has been sticking around. I know how to look for it now, even if I can’t find it all the time. Everything, and I do mean everything, has been touched by life, but this thing is like a heat sink. It doesn’t emit anything.”

“It’s intelligent,” Madara said. “It wanted me to leave the village, it knows a lot- too much- about the Uchiha. It doesn’t like you either. Didn’t want me to like you.”

“Didn’t?” Tobirama glanced up quickly. “When was the last time you saw it? Or heard it.”

“Before I tried to leave. It was good at that. It knew how to tell me my clan didn’t want me, the village didn’t want me. I guess it didn’t expect you to call me back in; we both must have thought you wanted me gone the most.”

Now it was Tobirama’s turn to say nothing, looking at him through pale eyelashes. The brush in his hands lay still and forgotten. “Good of me to have stalked you, then. Do you wish you left?”

“I’m not sure yet, but fuck if I’m going to let some son of a bitch manipulate me. If the piece of shit killed Hashirama, I’m going to do ten times worse to it.”

A wry smile crossed Tobirama’s face. “Whenever Hashirama got into one of his moods, he’d spout nonsense about how if you and he couldn’t achieve peace together, you were destined to kill each other in glorious battle. I would get so mad at him for acting like you mattered so much.”

“Are you saying I don’t matter? You _begged _me back to the village.”

“I didn’t _beg, _and you don’t matter. Anija mattered, and our dream for peace mattered. You were just some factor he insisted on including, and I hated that he’d risk his own life for you.”

“A brother indeed,” Madara hummed, considering the younger man. “However, and I don’t give a damn if you don’t like this, but Hashirama and I were _definitely _destined to fight to the death. On a cosmic level. It was serendipity.”

He dodged the brush that whipped towards his face.

“I think I need a drink after all this,” Tobirama said bitterly. “You want one?”

“Alcohol doesn’t really affect me,” Madara replied. “I’m surprised it does for you, you’ve got the same amount of insane chakra to burn through it.”

“Oh, it doesn’t. Makes it terribly useful in drinking contests. But Hashirama loved being drunk. He broke into our father’s sake at age three and just kept going. It frustrated him so much when he started becoming immune to it that he developed his own moonshine just to up the alcohol content. Took a while, but eventually he found out that if he grew his own fruit trees with the Mokuton, infused it with chakra, and then fermented it he would end up with something strong enough to kill a horse- and get him past tipsy.” Tobirama had reached the pantry and pulled out something obviously preserved in a home brewery. He unscrewed the top of the jar and poured a deep golden liquid into two glasses. “He’d go through them pretty quickly too, so I still have another twenty of these that he made from his last batch, and I rarely drink. I’m a little less interested in being knocked off my feet than he was.”

Madara accepted the glass being handed to him and took a careful sip. “Motherfucker,” he said, impressed. Tobirama made a noise of agreement.

“Chakra fruit, huh? I wonder-“ but then Madara found the aftertaste of the liquor and broke off. “It’s not half bad. I don’t even bother with normal alcohol because it usually just tastes like shit.”

“It’s sweet, isnt’ it? It’s like that with fruit liquor. Usually the sugar’s eaten up in the fermentation process, but I think the chakra might be doubling the alcoholic content without causing all the sugar to be broken down. And aside from that, most liquors age for a while before being consumed but this one is relatively young-“

“Alright, nerd, shut up and drink,” Madara interrupted, ignoring Tobirama’s huff of displeasure. “Dry the cup.”

“Drink it in one breath,” Tobirama muttered. It took one second of swallowing and looking at the bottom of his now empty glass before the alcohol hit Madara like an Akamichi.

“God _dammit_, Hashirama,” he hissed. “How in God’s name-“

Tobirama was laughing, and Madara tensed up, thinking it was at him, before he noticed the other slumped down on the couch with pink cheeks. “This- is why- I don’t drink-“ he huffed between giggles.

“Another, then,” Madara muttered and poured both their glasses. “If this is the only time I get to see you sloshed I’m making the most of it.”

Tobirama calmed down for a second to stare wide-eyed at him. “You’re taking it pretty well.”

“I am not,” Madara assured him. “I just have a steady sand. I mean hand.”

That set Tobirama off again, and he almost choked sipping on his second drink while laughing.

“Shut up,” Madara told him. “You’re not much better.”

“I’m better than better. I’m the best.”

“Good to see you’re a narcist.”

“A what?”

“Narciscict. Narcissicit. Narcissist.”

“It’s a fact, not an opinion. I _am _the best.” Tobirama’s forceful tone was marred by the flush still on his cheeks. He set off on another rant about the fermentation process and what suggestions he had made to Hashirama to better the process, which Madara duly ignored in order to finish off his glass gain, albeit more slowly this time. He poured himself a third.

“Wait, stop.”

“What,” Tobirama said. He seemed much less annoyed about being interrupted this time.

“I should teach you Katon. Uchiha always practice Katon drunk.”

“That,” Tobirama told him, “is a fantastic idea. Outside now.”

In their haste to make it to the backyard, Tobirama stepped on Madara’s cloak twice and Madara almost elbowed both of them in the face; he wasn’t sure how, exactly, but it also wasn’t his most pressing concern. The world wasn’t spinning as others had described it would while drunk, but everything was pleasantly fuzzy around the edges, and the lights from the house and in the sky had a beautiful artistic quality to them. Tobirama seemed to be making little flames pop off of his hands; not a great fireball jutsu, but a small juggling amusement that Uchiha children learned when they were still too young to withstand the heat of battle. Madara wondered how he’d learned it.

“Show me Katon,” Tobirama commanded, seemingly over his amusement with the trick.

“Thought you’d’ve seen it enough in battle.”

He frowned. “Bit hard to look at chakra manipulation when it’s aimed straight at me.”

“Fair enough,” Madara grunted, and aimed his most perfect katon at the sky. By most perfect, he had to correct himself, he meant the best he could do at the moment; it was far from its usual round shape and instead exploded into the air above them like a wayward firework.

“Oh fuck yeah,” Tobirama whispered, staring upwards.

“Gonna try again-“ Madara did, and this time it was cleaner, and a surprising bluish green color.

Next to him, Tobirama tried the seals and set off the jutsu, and a strange spout of steam erupted from him.

“Ha. Idiot Suiton user.” Madara grinned as the pure feeling of his fire nature danced across his gloved fingers. They felt so much lighter than usual, and his movements had a sort of fluidity that came not from perfect control but from complete lack thereof. He took Tobirama’s incorrectly positioned arms into his hands and adjusted them into a stronger stance. “Try again. And think fire.”

“Why is yours so nice,” Tobirama complained. He tried again, and this time a large red jet of flame crossed the yard. “So weak.”

“It really is,” Madara said, unimpressed.

“Madara. Look at me.” Tobirama clapped his hands twice, seemingly trying to get his attention. “Alcohol is flammable. Right? Fire is- um. Fire is flam. Flame. Fire jutsus with alcohol would be stronger. Right?”

“Yes. Exactly. So we should get the alcohol and-“

“No, no, no. We _are _the alcohol. We drank it. So if we drink chakra alcohol and then we make chakra fire-“

“You’re so fucking right, you sunuvabitch.”

It was not, in fact, a fantastic idea.

A few katon and one water dragon later (Tobirama had accidentally set fire to his own clothing and doused it in the most intelligent way he knew how, by trying to drown them both) they stumbled back into the house, collapsing on opposite sides of the low table. Madara eyed the jar of liquor.

“I don’t think I can take any more of that tonight,” he muttered.

“I wouldn’t torture my tongue that way,” Tobirama sighed, then made a few smacking noises with his mouth. “Couldn’t he have made one dry wine?”

“Sweet tooth,” mumbled Madara. Tobirama suddenly twisted, and started struggling to pull off his clothes.

“What are you doing?”

“ ‘S wet,” his voice came out, muffled by the shirt over his head. He finally escaped and flung it off to the side before reclining backwards onto the couch. Madara’s head was suddenly able to focus, but only on the sinuous line made from the angle of Tobirama’s jaw down to the dip of his navel, paralleled by those tattoos that had haunted him for the past month. He knew his sharingan had come out, could see that new clarity and tiny flickers of movement, but couldn’t bring himself to drag his eyes from the steady rise and fall of Tobirama’s chest, or the faint flush that softened itself over his collarbones and up his neck. He followed it up to that face to see Tobirama watching him back with half-lidded red eyes, where he was finally trapped.

It wasn’t as if Tobirama minded Madara’s gaze, but the weight of it settled around him, keeping him in place and making note of every detail of his body. He had forgotten to be wary of the sharingan, when it met him, and didn’t look away. He noticed too that Madara didn’t seem ashamed to be caught looking, and the air between them only became more still.

“This is a bad idea, isn’t it,” Madara rumbled.

“Wildly.” He couldn’t make his voice sound of more than a breath.

“Come here,” Madara beckoned, and while Tobirama refused to admit it later, it was with inhuman speed that he got up from his couch and made it to Madara’s.

The first thing that woke up Tobirama was the sunlight streaming in. It was pleasant, if a bit hot, and he wasn’t really willing to open his eyes all the way. The second thing, what truly jolted him all the way to wakeful, was the feeling of a loose arm curled around his unclothed waist, and a familiar chakra signature behind him.

“Mother_fucker_,” he mouthed to the quiet room.


	2. Drink Deeply

“Papers,” announced Tobirama as he stepped into Madara’s office that afternoon, high collar, silver locket, and all casual confidence, barely batting an eye. How unfair, Madara thought, that he seemed completely unabashed after Madara’s terrible morning of trying to keep his cool over breakfast tea.

“Joy. I suppose these will take me till dawn to finish.”

“The end is in sight,” Tobirama promised. “Once we implement the ranking system and assign commander, captains, and Hokage, you can go back to beating up innocent shuriken posts and I can go back to being the smartest boy in the world.”

“You think you’re funny,” Madara observed. “For some reason, I’m not laughing.”

Tobirama sat on the edge of his desk. “It’s because you’re too tense. Haven’t you heard of unwinding a little?”

He leaned back in his chair and fixed his unerring gaze on Tobirama. The collar, he realized, was strategic. “You know how much I can unwind. Intimately.”

“I don’t really remember it,” Tobirama admitted. Madara kept watching him with dark eyes, saying nothing, and he came to a realization. “_You_ do.”

“My sharingan does,” Madara corrected.

“Of course you had your sharingan on.”

“I can show you if you’d like,” Madara offered. “In a genjutsu.”

“I think not,” Tobirama said archly, raising an eyebrow. Madara was hardly surprised, and couldn’t bring himself to be offended, not when the faint reddening high on Tobirama’s cheeks sparked memories of last night, the replay in his head showing him the same long-suffering, scandalized, but blushing look the man had worn when Madara had him wrapped around his little finger.

“Well,” he replied, “As long as you don’t think it creates some kind of power imbalance between us…”

“God. You want there to be, don’t you?”

Madara drew a lazy eye over that annoyed face. “Madara’s fine, thank you. And I did say I just don’t want you to think that, not that there is one.”

Tobirama shoved a piece of paper off his desk in a moment of immaturity. “Don’t play your little mind games with me, Uchiha. Learn to be a good sport about the fact that you’ve never caught me a genjutsu.”

“What are you, a cat?” Madara eyed the paper, and then decided it wouldn’t be worth his time to pick it up now. “I’m convinced genjutsu wouldn’t work on you because you’re secretly bat-blind.”

“I must be, to have slept with you.” Tobirama slipped away from his desk and sauntered to the door.

“Lying doesn’t suit you, Senju. I know what you told me last night, even if you don’t.”

Tobirama said nothing in return as he walked out the door, only made an extremely rude gesture.

“What did I tell you? That night.”

“Curious now, aren’t you?” Madara rolled up the scroll and lightly hit Tobirama on the head. He frowned and rubbed the spot before adjusting his glasses.

“I’m not exactly convinced you aren’t lying to me.” This scroll wasn’t what he wanted; there was nothing on shadowy figures or ancient demons, only countless boring instructions on how exactly an Uchiha wedding ought to be conducted. “Tell me and if it sounds like something I’d say, I’ll believe you.”

“And what do I get out of it? Cross this one off, by the way.” Madara sighed and reached for the next scroll in the stack.

“Nothing. You owe me the information.”

“Perhaps you should have been born with a dojutsu if you wanted to know. Or not have drunk so much.”

Tobirama frowned at the scroll, distracted for a second. This one looked promising; a prophecy of ultimate power, never to be corroded, that could bring about world domination. Then he registered the asinine comment. “You _owe _me the information, because, if I recall correctly, you were acting the sword, not the sheath!”

A low chuckle escaped Madara, and it didn’t bode well for Tobirama how it sent a few shivers up his spine. Madara’s half smile in the torchlight, as he continued to gaze down at the scroll in his hands, caught his attention and Tobirama didn’t look away, curious at the simple, calm amusement.

“I haven’t heard that euphemism before. I thought you didn’t remember what happened.”

“I could still feel the effects,” Tobirama snapped.

“Fine then. I’ll tell you what you said.” He put the scroll on the ground- were his hands always that large?- and faced Tobirama. “You told me I was the most gorgeous man you’d ever met and that whenever you told me to bite you, you definitely meant it in two ways. Sound familiar?”

Tobirama knew he was caught. He could deny it, of course, but it did indeed sound like a pretty good reflection of what he thought and if it was true, Madara would know he was lying- but could he really admit to that?

“You’re hesitating. Must be true, then.”

Tobirama slammed his mouth shut. “You were lying.”

“Sharingan records movement, not sound, Senju. Thought you would have known that.”

“I assumed you could read lips.”

“Want to know what else those pretty lips of yours said? Wasn’t really words, mostly.”

Tobirama chucked a knife at him and looked down. He knew he was blushing, he fucking hated how pale his skin was at times. He peered up carefully, only to see Madara wink at him before he drew his eyes back down in frustration again. “You’re in a good mood,” he growled.

“It’s those glasses of yours. Makes your eyes all big and doe-like.”

“If you say one more word,” Tobirama hissed, “I will put a senbon through your tongue.”

He didn’t. But Tobirama knew, if he looked up, he’d find the older man watching him with that goddamn look.

“Put an Uchiha office of affairs here,” Madara said, pointing at the map next to where the Hokage’s building was set to be.

Tobirama frowned at the spot. “Your compound is a good ten miles away.”

“Yes, for privacy and so we can be close to the Naka Shrine. Our office of affairs should be here so that we can maintain status in the village center.”

“Don’t you have enough status as a founding clan? And what do you need an office of affairs for? You turned down the police force.”

“I,” Madara said, in a haughty manner that both managed to piss off Tobirama and make his eyes run appreciatively over the proud and powerful visage of the Uchiha Clan head, “would not be surprised if the lines between clans start to blur as the village gets older and the relevancy of having property for compounds lessens. In that case, assuming the Uchiha live wherever in the village they _want _to, I would still like for there to be an office to take care of clan matters such as protecting our dojutsu, representing ourselves to the village government, and executing idiots that insult us.”

“Okay, _no _to that last one, the Uchiha do not reserve the right to perform their own executions. Do you expect all clans to form this sort of office? Or is this meant to be a way to gain ground against the Senju?”

“The Senju don’t have a dojutsu,” Madara scoffed. “Or a compound. If you were the Hyūga I might expect it, but since the Senju split off from the Hyūga generations ago when Kenichi Senju had five sons without the Byakugan and a daughter with and foolishly married her off to the Hyūga family without regard for-“

“I know my clan history, thanks,” Tobirama waved him on. “Do you really think having your own special little building is going to be that important?”

“Task force. Tutors. Advisors. Records management. Scholars. The Uchiha might have lost the war, but damn if were weren’t more than just a military, Senju,” Madara said. “We have been a family since shinobi existed, and we haven’t broken rank once. We were never just a- a group of misfortunate people thrown together. The Senju- and others- more often than not see us as an insubordinate threat, but we’re our own people as well. Give us our presence and power in this village instead of just trying to make us tools.”

“Fine. Take your building. Just try to let non-Uchiha be tutored and advised too, instead of scaring them away.”

“It’s not our fault we all have resting bitch faces and glowing red eyes,” Madara grumbled. “_We _don’t judge other people by their boring, plain looks.”

“Oh, don’t talk to _me _about the inherent creepiness of red eyes,” Tobirama hissed. “_You _can turn them off.”

“You wanted my opinion, and there it is. You were the one that begged me to come back.”

“For the last time,” Tobirama growled, “I _didn’t _beg.”

Madara turned away from him, not bothering to make eye contact, but Tobirama could still hear his muttered words. “Oh, you begged all right. Can’t remember the sounds but my eyes can still read _please _and _let me-“_

That time, Tobirama’s knife didn’t miss and Madara wrenched it- and the collar of his shirt- out of the wall next to him. There was just a small line of blood on the knife and Tobirama pretended not to notice Madara smirking at him.

“Oh, bite me,” he huffed; then froze. It wasn’t even funny how badly he had just undermined himself, he realized.

“Shishou!” A small child squealed somewhere behind them, and Madara turned in time to see little Uchiha Kagami run twenty feet and leap into the air where Tobirama caught him easily, tossing him back into the air before catching him once more and setting him on his feet.

“Shishou, I finished memorizing the kata!” Kagami broke into a series of poses as Tobirama watched, amused, and Madara watched, shocked out of his mind.

“Very good,” Tobirama said, completely serious, “But did you help your mother carry groceries?”

“Oh.” Kagami stopped posing, and looked back at where his mother had her hands full of baskets of produce. “No.”

“It’s very important to always help your mother in every way and respect her. Women and mothers are the backbone of families and society, and besides, groceries are very heavy.” Tobirama ruffled Kagami’s hair. “If you help her with the vegetables now, you’ll be even stronger for our lessons tomorrow.”

“Okay, Shishou,” Kagami said, clearly satisfied by the explanation. His mother, Terumi- she was the woman that had greeted Tobirama at the Uchiha compound, Madara remembered- caught up to them and let Kagami grab the smallest bag from her arms.

“Thank you, Senju-san,” she said. “Not that a four year old is going to be lugging all of my things anytime soon, but-“

“It’ll be good practice for when he’s older,” Tobirama promised, and leaned down to kiss her cheek respectfully. “Is the same time tomorrow okay?”

“It’ll be fine. I’ll see you then.” She bowed to Madara before leaving the pair. “Eat well, Madara-sama.”

Madara hadn’t spoken during the entire exchange, and could only nod numbly in return. As the mother and child walked off, Tobirama turned to him with a raised brow and skeptical expression. “What?”

_I think you’re my soulmate, _Madara’s brain shouted, unwilling to string any other words together. His heart must have been in his throat at that point. Senju Tobirama, tutoring an Uchiha child? Little more than a baby, at that. Clearly respected by Terumi. Clearly adored by Kagami. Senju Tobirama, tossing a toddler up into the air with sure and kind hands. He would never have thought of it.

“Nothing. Let’s go.” He hastily turned on his heel and wove deeper into the marketplace.

“What does that mean, eat well?” Like a dog with a bone, Tobirama clearly didn’t know how to just let things go.

“It’s an Uchiha saying. It’s like, ‘take care of yourself’.”

“So she thinks you aren’t taking care of yourself?” He was impossibly stubborn to distract.

“No, she means-“ That was exactly what she meant, Madara realized. He reached up to feel his cheeks; surely they weren’t hollow or anything. The Uchiha said ‘you look healthy’ to those they admired and ‘eat well’ to those they worried about. “Do I _look_ like I’m not taking care of myself?”

Tobirama sighed, which he seemed to be doing a lot of. “I’m not sure if you meant that as an indignant response or a question, but no. You always look tired and on edge, and I’ve never seen you have anything but tea. And alcohol, I guess.”

“I don’t look tired! And of course I eat. I’ve never seen you eat either, but I respectfully mind my own business and assume that you do!”

“I assumed you ate small and annoying children for breakfast,” Tobirama told him, and then playfully snapped his teeth at Madara. The heart-in-throat feeling returned for a second. “At least, that’s what I told Kagami when he didn’t want to learn his hand seals. I said you’d eat him if he didn’t behave. He didn’t believe me, oddly enough.”

“I-“ Madara was speechless for so many reasons. “I can’t believe you.”

“Why not? It’s perfectly reasonable to _eat small children who misbehave_,” Tobirama said sternly, glaring down at a pair of siblings near their ankles that were smearing mud on a stall’s cloth banner. They shrieked and ran off. Where the fuck were all these kids coming from, Madara wondered.

“I eat two meals every day, Senju,” he snapped, annoyed at this turn of events that seemed to find him lacking.

“You _do _know it’s supposed to be three square meals a day?” Entirely too amused for his own good, Tobirama was. “In fact, you should not only be having at least three meals, but also four to eight snacks per day, otherwise your body will start to break down your muscles for nutrients and your chakra levels will progressively become smaller over time.”

“You’re joking.” Madara actually felt worried now. He’d noticed he fit into certain clothes now that had been straining on him during wartime, and that he was no longer restless with energy on the daily, instead almost fatigued at some points. “Are you serious?”

“Of course,” Tobirama said, but Madara knew his sense of dry humor well enough to take his straight face with a grain of salt. “Have you eaten yet today?”

“Yes.”

“Liar. You can have dinner with me if you’d like.”

“Only if you cook,” Madara snarked, already dreading the hassle of restaurants and barbeques.

“Not to be rude, but duh. I always cook.”

“You? Really?” He laughed.

Tobirama coolly raised an eyebrow at him. It really was unfair, that particular expression looked _so _good on him and Madara could only raise both at once. “If you’re mocking me for being able to cook, you should stop being such a chauvinist. If you’re doubting my ability to cook, you’re going to eat your words.”

“Right, I forgot,” Madara said. “You’re better than the best and the smartest boy in the world and good at everything.”

“I am,” Tobirama said, without even a tinge of defensiveness, “all of those things, yes.”

“In that case I will allow you to make me dinner. Make dinner for me.” God, he was about to throw himself off a cliff. He should never be allowed to talk if what came out of his mouth was a request to be another man’s dinner. And correcting himself had definitely made the whole thing worse.

“Oh, I will,” chuckled Tobirama, and that was Point to Senju, Game Score drawing close. He followed him sulkily through the marketplace, Tobirama buying vegetables and chatting happily with stall owners and Madara glaring at anyone who tried to engage him in conversation. He hadn’t seen Tobirama so relaxed before, normally someone nearby was the target of his ire.

“Can’t you slap on a smile?” Tobirama muttered to him. “I know you aren’t mad and don’t actually hate everyone ever born, so why are you acting like it?”

“You don’t have that much room to talk, you’ve made three secretaries cry. And smiles don’t look natural on me. I wear them in the battlefield.”

“They were incompetent and deserved it. Just, I don’t know, relax your eyebrows. And unclench your jaw.”

“I’ve told you before, _don’t _tell me what to do.” Madara did it anyways, and even if he couldn’t see the change, he could feel it.

“Yes, dear,” Tobirama said sardonically. “Look, a clown. Why don’t you go help it? I’m sure you know the craft.”

The throng of children around the clown not only answered Madara’s earlier question about the sudden appearance of various brats, but also persuaded him that it would be traumatizing for the little ones if he were to viciously and messily murder Tobirama in front of them. Were homicidal urges this normal? It didn’t matter, he decided. Tobirama had definitely tried to kill him for his insults in the past as well.

_Soulmate, _his brain whispered. He pushed it down.

“Go home,” Tobirama said, a little too snarkily, as if the crush in his heart were fluttering wildly and, in its desperation to not be known, were throwing up smoke and mirrors and throwing daggers out. Quiet, he told it, hush.

“I’m _going,_” sighed Madara. “You’re so prudish—afraid the neighbors will see a visitor over past ten?”

“Afraid of being seen loitering about with you,” sniped Tobirama, and started scrubbing the last of their dinner dishes.

“Thank you,” said the still-intruding man, hovering on the threshold, “for dinner.”

He had to clear his throat. “Anytime.” Even that was too husky for him.

A flick of his jet black cloak, and Madara was gone. Tobirama finished the dishes in peace, and began turning off the lights in his house. He truly hated this ritual in particular. He couldn’t ever say that he wanted his own children, or a wife—Butsuma’s _loving _familial relationships had made him ever so gun-shy to that idea, but god if he didn’t miss his brothers. His cousins in the house just ten feet over. Aunties coming over with soup whenever one of them had gotten beat up too badly. Someone’s baby that Mom was taking care of while they were out on a mission. God if he didn’t love it when the parents of his students let them come over to make a racket in his house here. They would always leave shortly after sternly reminding their kids to behave and be polite, and the moment they were out of earshot, he’d always give the kids a sly smile and tell them to do whatever they liked. It wasn’t often that he smiled at anyone, and the expressions it put on their faces was worth the home repairs he had to do afterwards.

He found his bed in the dark and lay there thinking for a while, playing a memory of him and Itama hiding frog guts in Butsuma’s shoe once after he had yelled at Mom for a petty reason. It had been raining, which was why they were able to catch the frog. He missed rain so often; rainy nights had always been few and far in between in Fire Country, and yet were always his favorite nights. It wasn’t raining tonight, and he had been planting bamboo outside so that when the rain fell it would make that rustling sound-

Ah. So that’s what it was. And, if he searched a little bit harder, he could—yes, there it was.

The force of Tobirama’s knock slammed his door open, leaving a dent in the wall behind it.

“Come in,” Madara said dryly.

“I found it,” Tobirama told him, pale.

“You did?”

“We need to go. Now.”

Tobirama had been the one to guide him down into the recently established Uchiha archives, his sensor ability as disturbing and uncanny as ever, but Madara drew the door open and stepped through first, his torchlight flickering across the walls and the Uchiha stone tablet.

“There’s nothing here.” Madara rasped.

“Exactly. That’s that nothingness, can’t you feel it?”

He shook his head. “It feels normal.”

Tobirama’s eyes are unnaturally wide in the gloom, him reflecting the firelight better than anything else. “There’s an emptiness-“

“-I can’t. It’s just you and me-“ Madara interrupted and in turn was interrupted by hissing laughter, nearly a high pitched growl. Madara had never heard it before, but as soon as the words started he recognized the wicked tongue that had echoed in his head for nearly a year.

“Tobirama....Hashirama was wiser...he found me in the sunlight. We’re in the dark here. I belong in the dark, Tobirama.” The words echoed around the room and still Madara couldn’t see it- even his Sharingan couldn’t pick up a sign of chakra.

“Show yourself,” Tobirama growled, voice menacingly deep but controlled, chakra under wraps.

“Madara can’t feel me. Don’t you know why that is? We aren’t enemies, him and me.” Glowing yellow circles peered out above the tablet, behind them a shadow of a human-like form. “Aren’t we friends, Madara?”

“You aren’t the shit underneath my boot.” Madara hissed back. “Tobirama, aren’t we killing this fucker?”

It smiled eerily, its teeth emitting as much light as its eyes. “Don’t you want to know why we’re such good friends?”

Tobirama circled, blocking the entrance.

“That won’t work. There are cracks in this...plane. Sweet Tobirama. Well meaning. Trusting.” It laughed.

“_Trusting?_” Madara and Tobirama asked in unison, disbelieving. “Sweet?” Added Tobirama under his breath.

The thing panted heavily from its open mouth, the leer hinting at sharp canines. “You _trust_ Madara. Foolish. He and I aren’t so different. Don’t you know where I’m from, yet?”

Tobirama scoffed. “You ask a lot of question for something about to die.”

“I won’t die as long as the Uchiha live...Indra’s descendants need me. I’m just a part of them. The Uchiha _created_ me.”

“Oh, don’t bother,” Madara said. “You take left, I’ll take right.”

“I know your mind, Madara. You know I belong there. And these words-“ It slithered over the unintelligible carvings on the tablet “-I was there when they were carved. I’m here to protect the Uchiha! From Hashirama. From you, Tobirama. And Madara, you called me.”

“I didn’t! You twisted piece of-“

“You _did_, Madara. You needed help, and I came. You knew Hashirama would stop you. You _told_ me so. I fixed that for you, didn’t I? Does dear little Tobirama know? Shouldn’t he know, before we kill him?” It was fixated on Madara now, but Tobirama couldn’t bring himself any closer, to try to stop the tsunami of chaos.

“We aren’t going to be killing-you aren’t- get OUT of my head!” Madara too had halted, glaring ineffectually at it and gripping his knife so hard it looked like it hurt.

“You want him dead...yes. He’s a threat to the Uchiha. To the peace. You haven’t forgotten, Madara?”

“Shut up,” Tobirama hissed, rattled.

It ignored him. “Eternal peace. Two becoming one. That’s all we want. And Tobirama isn’t part of that.”

Madara hesitated, muttering at the stone tablet. “Two becomes one. Two parts, with the greatest of power.” He looked at Tobirama, who for the first time in a while, was visibly unnerved. He hated it, the closest thing to fear he’d seen on the other’s face.

“Madara. Focus.”

“I am, Senju,” he said breathlessly.

“You can give Tobirama peace too,” it purred. “There’s peace for everyone. Tobirama. I-_zu-_na.”

“We don’t have Hashirama.” Madara seemed lost. The use of _we_ had Tobirama’ skin crawling. The creature’s slow inch towards Madara had him gripping his katana tighter, yet his feet wouldn’t take a single step.

“We do.” Its yellow gaze snapped towards Tobirama. “What a beautiful necklace, Senju Tobirama.”

“What?” Madara shook himself out of his spell. Tobirama carefully did not allow his hand to jump to his throat.

Its grin was directed at Tobirama now, and it wasn’t any sort of relief. “Don’t you want your brother back? You have the power to do it.”

A faint memory of koi ponds and a Joke That Was Not A Joke brushed Madara’s mind.

“No, you must be mistaken. I seem to recall my brother died by your...hand? Do you have those?” The fury and sickness rising in Tobirama churned his stomach.

It wiggled appendages. “I do. You do. Make those pretty little seals, Tobirama; don’t you want your brother back?”

“I don’t think so.”

“All of them? You could have all of them, and your mother too. You’ve been so alone, all you need to do is bring Hashirama back and soon you’ll be happy again. So alone, poor To-bi-ra-ma. Working so hard with the man you hate the most. Yes. Such hatred here. Hashirama was the only one who didn’t hate, wasn’t he? You have to bring him back, Tobirama.”

“I told you, no. Now-“ Tobirama lifted his katana. Quick as a flash, the creature surged to Madara and slid over half his body, covering it completely in a sick imitation of Hashirama’s half burnt corpse.

“Oh Tobirama. It wasn’t a request. And look! You even have a body!” The smile was still there, half a crescent, obscenely large in comparison to the frown on Madara’s visible face.

“What the _fuck_ is going on, Senju,” he hissed through gritted teeth.

“Hashirama!” It parroted itself gleefully, “Tobirama can give us Hashirama, and you and Hashirama will be together. The two, together, will bring peace forever.”

“As if you’re after peace,” snarled Tobirama, “you literally look like the most evil scum of this earth.”

“Careful, wouldn’t want him to die before you can perform the jutsu.”

“So either way he’ll die?” Tobirama’s eyes were back to their furious slits. “Sounds like I shouldn’t do what you want if that’s the case. I’ll hold a good funeral for him.”

“Maybe I’ll go for the eyes first.” The yellow circle across from Madara’s visible Sharingan flared brighter, and Madara grunted, said in a panicked voice, “Senju? The fuck is going on.”

Tobirama sucked in a breath through his teeth, focused on the menacing stare. “It wants me to reanimate Hashirama using you as a sacrifice.”

“You better fucking not! And if it takes my eyes, you’re responsible for killing it.”

“I don’t think it’ll do that.” Madara could see the lines of tension, but Tobirama’s voice was oddly calm. “I think it needs your eyes. And your life. Doesn’t work to maim you, does it?”

The creature grinned more brightly. “You don’t want your lover hurt, do you, Tobirama? Want to hear him scream?”

“I’d rather have him hurt than dead,” said Tobirama grimly. The smile dropped off its face and it growled in frustration.

“If you won’t summon Hashirama, I’ll do it for you!” Its dark form flooded off Madara.

Tobirama moved too quick to follow and sliced it with the katana. It split, half scurrying towards him again, the other fizzling and popping into sludge. Unable to escape at such a close range, it slipped onto Tobirama, who hissed at the unpleasant cold feeling, as if he were floating away into intangible space, dark and deep filled with whispers and powerful beings that floated just slightly behind him.

The black covering his body forced his hands upward, fingers preemptively forming seals. Halfway to his chest, they stopped, the strain evident on Tobirama’s face.

“Madara, help.” His chakra, that amazing control that Madara watched through the Sharingan, flared across skin and forced the thing off, peeling and falling away from Tobirama.

“What—how?” In all honesty, Madara rather thought that maybe Tobirama had it under control.

“Yellow,” Tobirama hissed, as the last of the tongues of darkness writhed off of him, squirming away from the burning chakra. “Shisekiyōjin.”

The command clicked in Madara’s head, and without a second thought, the two of them moved in sync, the Two Kage Seal flaring between them and a yellow barrier sprung up around the demonic thing, it barreling against its walls and spitting with rage.

“Seal him,” Tobirama panted out, and again the two of them drew blood and wrote the seals out, but the inscriptions burnt away as the thing cackled and screamed.

“It burns, yes, you two are strong. You’re hurting me! But you can’t seal me, no no, only mother can. You two are _nothing_.”

“Madara,” gasped Tobirama, face white from chakra loss. “Two powerful as one. Hashirama knew. Almost. You know.”

“Know what, Senju?”

“Hold on. Hold the barrier.”

He stepped back, shadow clone taking his spot across from Madara, the yellow moving from his hands to the clone’s. Tobirama opened his necklace, that locket that Madara has seen so often, that the creature had mentioned. He took a strand of hair from it, placed it on the clone, and slowly but surely, chakra building from nothingness, began an incredible number of seals, his hands blurring.

“What the hell are you doing, Senju?” God this night was crazy.

The creature had gone silent. Madara checked to make sure it wasn’t plotting some escape, and it was still there, and seemed agitated.

Paper began swirling about the clone, building it taller and broader, and the figure became a pure, patched white before color began to leak into it, hair unfolding down its back, before Madara came face to face with Hashirama. A transformation, Madara began to think, before Hashirama’s unmistakable flowers-and-shioyaki chakra washed over him, the same feeling of coming home to lunch on a spring day.

“Hello Madara,” Hashirama said, smiling. “Hello, little brother.”

“Anija,” rasped Tobirama.

“Now, that won’t do.” Hashirama covered Tobirama gently with his hand and began healing the whitening burn marks from where he’d been covered by the demon. “Brother, I thought you decided to not use this jutsu.”

“Desperate times, desperate measures.” He waved at the sealing box. “Care to identify your murderer?”

“Aha. Dokuzetsu! What a sight you are.”

“Hashirama. This is unpleasant.” The thing, Dokuzetsu, Madara supposed, slithered around his yellow cage and growled at Hashirama through pointed little teeth. The effect of its glowing eyes were lessened by the trap, and now, with Hashirama’s presence, the entire scene felt less malevolent—or perhaps Madara was now just a little less in touch with reality.

“Yes, I suppose it is.” Hashirama squatted by the cage. “You found him, Tobirama?”

“After a while. Do you think- you. Madara. Should seal him together.”

“Yes, I think that will work. Madara?” Hashirama looked at him, and he had to keep reminding himself this was a paper covered clone of Tobirama, this wasn’t his former partner back and warm in front of him.

“How can this be you?”

“Afterwards is a better time for that, old friend. For now, let’s deal with this little pesky nuisance.”

Shakily, Madara turned his attention back to Dokuzetsu. “Of course. Of course.”

Somehow, the same seals that he had just done with Tobirama seemed to click, to hold and double, seemed like his blood flowed thicker with Hashirama on the other side of the seal. Dokuzetsu was furious, and yet his spitting and clawing didn’t even manage to break through to them. He had nearly forgotten what it was like to work alongside Hashirama, after all this time where he had been acting as the night sky to watch Tobirama’s moon shine silver, he again took the role of the darkness in which Hashirama’s sun had the space to burn. Everything that Hashirama put in the seal, he made the negative space for. He didn’t even realize it when they were done, almost snapping out of a trance.

And yet, he felt darker, and older, somehow. Further and further from the man he was when he had eaten fried vegetables and pork at Tobirama’s dinner table, happy and full for the first time in weeks. Buzzing blood and quiet mind.

“Madara,” Hashirama called. His friend smiled at him like he knew what he was thinking. Around them were the stones of the Uchiha—had the writing on the tablet changed somewhat? But no Dokuzetsu. The Kage seal gone because there was no more use. And Tobirama, pale and tired.

“I will be going quickly.” Hashirama told them.

“No,” Tobirama pouted. It was such a critical younger sibling look that Madara’s heart almost broke, thinking of Izuna and how much he hated Madara leaving on missions. Hashirama simply laughed and roughly tugged Tobirama into a hug.

“You can’t sustain me forever, little brother. But I’m watching over you. You’re doing well.”

Madara could barely see Tobirama’s profile, the scrunch too his nose as Hashirama’s words washed over them both.

“You too, Madara,” he said. “Keep my brother safe, will you?”

“Of course.” His voice felt gravelly now.

Hashirama let go of Tobirama and came to him, ethereal. He held out his arms for permission—something he had never done in life—and Madara let him, his form neither cold nor warm as his arms wrapped around Madara. Finally he let go of him to and reached out for Tobirama’s hand as he began to fade away, each slip of paper seemingly gone to fast and slower than a butterfly in the midday.

“I love you, Tobirama,” he said. “I want you to love yourself as much as I love you.”

“No,” Tobirama said, unable to reason but unable to watch his brother leave again. “No.”

“Yes,” said Hashirama. “Or I’ll tell mother.”

And so he was gone. Tobirama stared at the place he was, hand moving unconsciously to the locket around his neck. Madara felt a bit light-headed, but he catiously moved closer, unsure how severe Tobirama’s chakra loss was.

“I’m here-“ and he didn’t get any further with that sentence before Tobirama grabbed his arm and in the next moment they were back in their office, where dawn’s rays where just coming through the window.

As he held Tobirama weeping against his chest, watched him shake from the sobs he tried so hard to keep quiet, Madara felt the familiar ache he hadn’t wanted or expected to feel again, and a stab of fear shot through him as he realized that it couldn’t be anything but love. But above and before everything else, Madara was an Uchiha, and he pressed Tobirama into himself all the more tightly, for he knew that now that he’d felt that love, the only alternative would be loss, and he would do everything in his power to never lose him.

Tobirama sat on the desk, watching Madara overlook the village.

“I’ve finally gotten that Hokage seat filled,” he said, lightly rapping his knuckles on the piece of paper next to him. Madara hummed a soft _good_, and came to stand next to him to look at it.

“We did it, I think.” He felt almost like he couldn’t tear his eyes away from Madara’s profile, waiting for some sign of approval. “How long before I can stop worrying that it’ll fall apart in my hands?”

“You worry?” A sly smile crossed Madara’s face. “I thought you did what you wanted and consequences be damned.”

“I do what I want, but other people won’t do what I want, and there’s the problem,” he growled. “You haven’t even answered me.”

“What will make you stop worrying? There will always be problems. There will always be war. Yet somehow, we’ve made it better, just a little bit. You’ve made it better.” Madara leaned ever so slightly closer, both dark eyes visibly glowing.

“And you?” Tobirama swallowed; his voice seemed husky and quiet. “Will you help me? Will you stay?”

Madara closed the final inches between them and pressed his mouth to Tobirama’s. White eyelashes fluttered, and he felt his heart so loudly, so suddenly.

“Stay?” Madara whispered against Tobirama’s lips before giving him another kiss, “How could I now leave?”

He finally pulled away and watched as Tobirama slowly opened ruby eyes.

“Will you come home with me?”

“Yes,” Madara said, and paused, grinned. “I think you’ve earned that.”

Outside, rain began to fall, hard and fast, on the warm koi pond, on the perimeter’s dead tree, on the bamboo planted by a window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y’all I finished this fic immediately after turning in a terrible final for a class that I will for sure fail. Can’t wait haha yay!
> 
> I was really tempted to put this in there:
> 
> “I eat two meals every day, Senju,” he snapped, annoyed at this turn of events that seemed to find him lacking.  
“You do know it’s supposed to be three square meals a day?” Entirely too amused for his own good, Tobirama was.   
“What? They have to be square?”


End file.
